The Winning of the West, Volume Two by Theodore Roosevelt

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Thus the settlers could no longer always kill their own game; and there
were churches, schools, mills, stores, race tracks, and markets in
Kentucky.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE HOLSTON SETTLEMENTS, 1777-1779.

Organization of the Holston Settlements.

The history of Kentucky and the Northwest has now been traced from the
date of the Cherokee war to the close of the Revolution. Those portions
of the southwestern lands that were afterwards made into the State of
Tennessee, had meanwhile developed with almost equal rapidity. Both
Kentucky and Tennessee grew into existence and power at the same time,
and were originally settled and built up by precisely the same class of
American backwoodsmen. But there were one or two points of difference in
their methods of growth. Kentucky sprang up afar off in the wilderness,
and as a separate entity from the beginning. The present State has grown
steadily from a single centre, which was the part first settled; and the
popular name of the commonwealth has always been Kentucky. Tennessee, on
the other hand, did not assume her present name until a quarter of a
century after the first exploration and settlement had begun; and the
State grew from two entirely distinct centres. The first settlements,
known as the Watauga, or afterwards more generally as the Holston,
settlements, grew up while keeping close touch with the Virginians, who
lived round the Tennessee head-waters, and also in direct communication
with North Carolina, to which State they belonged. It was not until 1779
that a portion of these Holston people moved to the bend of the
Cumberland River and started a new community, exactly as Kentucky had
been started before. At first this new community, known as the
Cumberland settlement, was connected by only the loosest tie with the
Holston settlements. The people of the two places were not grouped
together; they did not even have a common name. The three clusters of
Holston, Cumberland, and Kentucky settlements developed independently of
one another, and though their founders were in each case of the same
kind, they were at first only knit one to another by a lax bond of
comradeship.

In 1776 the Watauga pioneers probably numbered some six hundred souls in
all. Having at last found out the State in which they lived, they
petitioned North Carolina to be annexed thereto as a district or county.
The older settlements had evidently been jealous of them, for they found
it necessary to deny that they were, as had been asserted, "a lawless
mob"; it may be remarked that the Transylvanian colonists had been
obliged to come out with a similar statement. In their petition they
christened their country "Washington District," in honor of the great
chief whose name already stood first in the hearts of all Americans. The
document was written by Sevier. It set forth the history of the
settlers, their land purchases from the Indians, their successful effort
at self-government, their military organization, with Robertson as
captain, and finally their devotion to the Revolutionary cause; and
recited their lack of proper authority to deal promptly with felons,
murderers, and the like, who came in from the neighboring States, as the
reason why they wished to become a self-governing portion of North
Carolina. [Footnote: The petition, drawn up in the summer of '76, was
signed by 112 men. It is given in full by Ramsey, p. 138. See also
Phelan, p. 40.] The legislature of the State granted the prayer of the
petitioners, Washington District was annexed, and four representatives
therefrom, one of them Sevier, took their seats that fall in the
Provincial Congress at Halifax. But no change whatever was made in the
government of the Watauga people until 1777. In the spring of that year
laws were passed providing for the establishment of courts of pleas and
quarter sessions in the district, as well as for the appointment of
justices of the peace, sheriffs, and militia officers; and in the fall
the district was made a county, under the same name. The boundaries of
Washington County were the same as those of the present State of
Tennessee, and seem to have been outlined by Sevier, the only man who at
that time had a clear idea as to what should be the logical and definite
limits of the future State.

Upholding the Law.

The nominal change of government worked little real alteration in the
way the Holston people managed their affairs. The members of the old
committee became the justices of the new court, and, with a slight
difference in forms, proceeded against all offenders with their former
vigor. Being eminently practical men, and not learned in legal
technicalities, their decisions seem to have been governed mainly by
their own ideas of justice, which, though genuine, were rough. As the
war progressed and the southern States fell into the hands of the
British, the disorderly men who had streamed across the mountains became
openly defiant towards the law. The tories gathered in bands, and every
man who was impatient of legal restraint, every murderer, horse-thief,
and highway robber in the community flocked to join them. The militia
who hunted them down soon ceased to discriminate between tories and
other criminals, and the courts rendered decisions to the same effect.
The caption of one indictment that has been preserved reads against the
defendant "in toryism." He was condemned to imprisonment during the war,
half his goods was confiscated to the use of the State, and the other
half was turned over for the support of his family. In another case the
court granted a still more remarkable order, upon the motion of the
State attorney, which set forth that fifteen hundred pounds, due to a
certain H., should be retained in the hands of the debtor, because
"there is sufficient reason to believe that the said H's estate will be
confiscated to the use of the State for his misdemeanours."

There is something refreshing in the solemnity with which these
decisions are recorded, and the evident lack of perception on the part
of the judges that their records would, to their grandchildren, have a
distinctly humorous side. To tories, and evil-doers generally, the humor
was doubtless very grim; but as a matter of fact, the decisions, though
certainly of unusual character, were needful and just. The friends of
order had to do their work with rough weapons, and they used them most
efficiently. Under the stress of so dire an emergency as that they
confronted they were quite right in attending only to the spirit of law
and justice, and refusing to be hampered by the letter. They would have
discredited their own energy and hard common-sense had they acted
otherwise, and, moreover, would have inevitably failed to accomplish
their purpose.

In the summer of '78, when Indian hostilities almost entirely ceased,
most of the militia were disbanded, and, in consequence, the parties of
tories and horse-thieves sprang into renewed strength, and threatened to
overawe the courts and government officers. Immediately the leaders
among the whigs, the friends of order and liberty, gathered together and
organized a vigilance committee. The committee raised two companies of
mounted riflemen, who were to patrol the country and put to death all
suspicious characters who resisted them or who refused to give security
to appear before the committee in December. The proceedings of the
committee were thus perfectly open; the members had no idea of acting
secretly or against order. It was merely that in a time of general
confusion they consolidated themselves into a body which was a most
effective, though irregular, supporter of the cause of law. The mounted
riflemen scoured the country and broke up the gangs of evil-doers,
hanging six or seven of the leaders, while a number of the less
prominent were brought before the committee, who fined some and
condemned others to be whipped or branded. All of doubtful loyalty were
compelled to take the test oath. [Footnote: Haywood, p. 58. As
Haywood's narrative is based largely on what the pioneers in their old
age told him, his dates, and especially his accounts of the numbers and
losses of the Indians in their battles, are often very inaccurate. In
this very chapter he gives, with gross inaccuracy of detail, an account
of one of Sevier's campaigns as taking place in 1779, whereas it really
occurred after his return from King's Mountain. There is therefore need
to be cautious in using him.]

Such drastic measures soon brought about peace; but it was broken again
and again by similar risings and disturbances. By degrees most of the
worst characters fled to the Cherokees, or joined the British as their
forces approached the up-country. Until the battle of Kings Mountain,
the pioneers had to watch the tories as closely as they did the Indians;
there was a constant succession of murders, thefts, and savage
retaliations. Once a number of tories attempted to surprise and murder
Sevier in his own house; but the plot was revealed by the wife of the
leader, to whom Sevier's wife had shown great kindness in her time of
trouble. In consequence the tories were themselves surprised and their
ringleaders slain. Every man in the country was obliged to bear arms the
whole time, not only because of the Indian warfare, but also on account
of the inveterate hatred and constant collisions between the whigs and
the loyalists. Many dark deeds were done, and though the tories, with
whom the criminal classes were in close alliance, were generally the
first and chief offenders, yet the patriots cannot be held guiltless of
murderous and ferocious reprisals. They often completely failed to
distinguish between the offenders against civil order, and those whose
only crime was an honest, if mistaken, devotion to the cause of the
king.

Land laws

Early in '78 a land office was opened in the Holston settlements, and
the settlers were required to make entries according to the North
Carolina land laws. Hitherto they had lived on their clearings
undisturbed, resting their title upon purchase from the Indians and upon
their own mutual agreements. The old settlers were given the prior right
to the locations, and until the beginning of '79 in which to pay for
them. Each head of a family was allowed to take up six hundred and forty
acres for himself, one hundred for his wife, and one hundred for each of
his children, at the price of forty shillings per hundred acres, while
any additional amount cost at the rate of one hundred shillings, instead
of forty. All of the men of the Holston settlements were at the time in
the service of the State as militia, in the campaign against the
Indians; and when the land office was opened, the money that was due
them sufficed to pay for their claims. They thus had no difficulty in
keeping possession of their lands, much to the disappointment of the
land speculators, many of whom had come out at the opening of the
office. Afterwards large tracts were given as bounty, or in lieu of pay,
to the Revolutionary soldiers. All the struggling colonies used their
wild land as a sort of military chest; it was often the only security of
value in their possession.

The same year that the land office was opened, it was enacted that the
bridle path across the mountains should be chopped out and made into a
rough wagon road. [Footnote: However this was not actually done until
some years later.] The following spring the successful expedition
against the Chicamaugas temporarily put a stop to Indian troubles. The
growing security, the opening of the land office, and the increase of
knowledge concerning the country, produced a great inflow of settlers in
1779, and from that time onward the volume of immigration steadily
increased.

Character and Life of the Settlers.

Many of these new-comers were "poor whites," or crackers; lank, sallow,
ragged creatures, living in poverty, ignorance, and dirt, who regarded
all strangers with suspicion as "outlandish folks." [Footnote: Smythe's
Tours, I., 103, describes the up-country crackers of North Carolina and
Virginia.] With every chance to rise, these people remained mere squalid
cumberers of the earth's surface, a rank, up-country growth, containing
within itself the seeds of vicious, idle pauperism, and
semi-criminality. They clustered in little groups, scattered throughout
the backwoods settlements, in strong contrast to the vigorous and manly
people around them.

By far the largest number of the new-comers were of the true, hardy
backwoods stock, fitted to grapple with the wilderness and to hew out of
it a prosperous commonwealth. The leading settlers began, by thrift and
industry, to acquire what in the backwoods passed for wealth. Their
horses, cattle, and hogs throve and multiplied. The stumps were grubbed
out of the clearings, and different kinds of grains and roots were
planted. Wings were added to the houses, and sometimes they were roofed
with shingles. The little town of Jonesboro, the first that was not a
mere stockaded fort, was laid off midway between the Watauga and the
Nolichucky.

As soon as the region grew at all well settled, clergymen began to come
in. Here, as elsewhere, most of the frontiersmen who had any religion at
all professed the faith of the Scotch-Irish; and the first regular
church in this cradle-spot of Tennessee was a Presbyterian log
meeting-house, built near Jonesboro in 1777, and christened Salem
Church. Its pastor was a pioneer preacher, who worked with fiery and
successful energy to spread learning and religion among the early
settlers of the southwest. His name was Samuel Doak. He came from New
Jersey, and had been educated in Princeton. Possessed of the vigorous
energy that marks the true pioneer spirit, he determined to cast in his
lot with the frontier folk. He walked through Maryland and Virginia,
driving before him an old "flea-bitten grey" horse, loaded with a
sackful of books; crossed the Alleghanies, and came down along blazed
trails to the Holston settlements. The hardy people among whom he took
up his abode were able to appreciate his learning and religion as much
as they admired his adventurous and indomitable temper; and the stern,
hard, God-fearing man became a most powerful influence for good
throughout the whole formative period of the southwest. [Footnote: See
"East Tennessee a Hundred Years Ago," by the Hon. John Allison,
Nashville, 1887, p. 8.]

Not only did he found a church, but near it he built a log high-school,
which soon became Washington College, the first institution of the kind
west of the Alleghanies. Other churches, and many other schools, were
soon built. Any young man or woman who could read, write, and cipher
felt competent to teach an ordinary school; higher education, as
elsewhere at this time in the west, was in the hands of the clergy.

As elsewhere, the settlers were predominantly of Calvinistic stock; for
of all the then prominent faiths Calvinism was nearest to their feelings
and ways of thought. Of the great recognized creeds it was the most
republican in its tendencies, and so the best suited to the
backwoodsmen. They disliked Anglicanism as much as they abhorred and
despised Romanism--theoretically at least, for practically then as now
frontiersmen were liberal to one another's religious opinions, and the
staunch friend and good hunter might follow whatever creed he wished,
provided he did not intrude it on others. But backwoods Calvinism
differed widely from the creed as first taught. It was professed by
thorough-going Americans, essentially free and liberty-loving, who would
not for a moment have tolerated a theocracy in their midst. Their
social, religious, and political systems were such as naturally
flourished in a country remarkable for its temper of rough and
self-asserting equality. Nevertheless the old Calvinistic spirit left a
peculiar stamp on this wild border democracy. More than any thing else,
it gave the backwoodsmen their code of right and wrong. Though they were
a hard, narrow, dogged people, yet they intensely believed in their own
standards and ideals. Often warped and twisted, mentally and morally, by
the strain of their existence, they at least always retained the
fundamental virtues of hardihood and manliness.

Presbyterianism was not, however, destined even here to remain the
leading frontier creed. Other sects still more democratic, still more in
keeping with backwoods life and thought, largely supplanted it.
Methodism did not become a power until after the close of the
Revolution; but the Baptists followed close on the heels of the
Presbyterians. They, too, soon built log meeting-houses here and there,
while their preachers cleared the forest and hunted elk and buffalo like
the other pioneer settlers. [Footnote: Ramsey, 144.]

To all the churches the preacher and congregation alike went armed, the
latter leaning their rifles in their pews or near their seats, while the
pastor let his stand beside the pulpit. On week-days the clergymen
usually worked in the fields in company with the rest of the settlers;
all with their rifles close at hand and a guard stationed. In more than
one instance when such a party was attacked by Indians the servant of
the Lord showed himself as skilled in the use of carnal weapons as were
any of his warlike parishioners.

The leaders of the frontiersmen were drawn from among several families,
which, having taken firm root, were growing into the position of
backwoods gentry. Of course the use of this term does not imply any
sharp social distinctions in backwoods life, for there were none such.
The poorest and richest met on terms of perfect equality, slept in one
another's houses, and dined at one another's tables. But certain
families, by dint of their thrift, the ability they showed in civil
affairs, or the prowess of some of their members in time of war, had
risen to acknowledged headship.

The part of Washington County northwest of the Holston was cut off and
made into the county of Sullivan by the North Carolina Legislature in
1779. In this part the Shelbys were the leading family; and Isaac Shelby
was made county lieutenant. It had been the debatable ground between
Virginia and North Carolina, the inhabitants not knowing to which
province they belonged, and sometimes serving the two governments
alternately. When the line was finally drawn, old Evan Shelby's estate
was found to lie on both sides of it; and as he derived his title from
Virginia, he continued to consider himself a Virginian, and held office
as such. [Footnote: Campbell MSS. Notes by Gov. David Campbell.]

In Washington County Sevier was treated as practically commander of the
militia some time before he received his commission as county
lieutenant. He was rapidly becoming the leader of the whole district. He
lived in a great, rambling one-story log house on the Nolichucky, a
rude, irregular building with broad verandas and great stone
fire-places. The rooms were in two groups, which were connected by a
covered porch--a "dog alley," as old settlers still call it, because the
dogs are apt to sleep there at night. Here he kept open house to all
comers, for he was lavishly hospitable, and every one was welcome to bed
and board, to apple-jack and cider, hominy and corn-bread, beef,
venison, bear meat, and wild fowl. When there was a wedding or a
merrymaking of any kind he feasted the neighborhood, barbecuing
oxen--that is, roasting them whole on great spits,--and spreading board
tables out under the trees. He was ever on the alert to lead his mounted
riflemen against the small parties of marauding Indians that came into
the country. He soon became the best commander against Indians that
there was on this part of the border, moving with a rapidity that
enabled him again and again to overtake and scatter their roving
parties, recovering the plunder and captives, and now and then taking a
scalp or two himself. His skill and daring, together with his unfailing
courtesy, ready tact, and hospitality, gained him unbounded influence
with the frontiersmen, among whom he was universally known as
"Nolichucky Jack." [Footnote: MSS. "Notes of Conversations with Old
Pioneers," by Ramsey, in Tenn. Hist. Soc. Campbell MSS.]

The Virginian settlements on the Holston, adjoining those of North
Carolina, were in 1777 likewise made into a county of Washington. The
people were exactly the same in character as those across the line; and
for some years the fates of all these districts were bound up together.
Their inhabitants were still of the usual backwoods type, living by
tilling their clearings and hunting; the elk and buffalo had become very
scarce, but there were plenty of deer and bear, and in winter countless
wild swans settled down on the small lakes and ponds. The boys followed
these eagerly; one of them, when an old man, used to relate how his
mother gave him a pint of cream for every swan he shot, with the result
that he got the pint almost every day. [Footnote: "Sketch of Mrs.
Elizabeth Russell," by her grandson, Thomas L. Preston, Nashville, 1888,
p. 29. An interesting pamphlet.]

The leading family among these Holston Virginians was that of the
Campbells, who lived near Abingdon. They were frontier farmers, who
chopped down the forest and tilled the soil with their own hands. They
used the axe and guided the plow as skilfully as they handled their
rifles; they were also mighty hunters, and accustomed from boyhood to
Indian warfare. The children received the best schooling the back
country could afford, for they were a book-loving race, fond of reading
and study as well as of out-door sports. The two chief members were
cousins, Arthur and William. Arthur was captured by the northern Indians
when sixteen, and was kept a prisoner among them several years; when
Lord Dunmore's war broke out he made his escape, and acted as scout to
the Earl's army. He served as militia colonel in different Indian
campaigns, and was for thirty years a magistrate of the county; he was a
man of fine presence, but of jealous, ambitious, overbearing temper. He
combined with his fondness for Indian and hunter life a strong taste for
books, and gradually collected a large library. So keen were the
jealousies, bred of ambition, between himself and his cousin William
Campbell, they being the two ranking officers of the local forces, that
they finally agreed to go alternately on the different military
expeditions; and thus it happened that Arthur missed the battle of
King's Mountain, though he was at the time County Lieutenant.

William Campbell stood next in rank. He was a man of giant strength,
standing six feet two inches in height, and straight as a spear-shaft,
with fair complexion, red hair, and piercing, light blue eyes. A firm
friend and staunch patriot, a tender and loving husband and father,
gentle and courteous in ordinary intercourse with his fellows, he was,
nevertheless, if angered, subject to fits of raging wrath that impelled
him to any deed of violence. [Footnote: Campbell MSS. Notes, by Gov.
David Campbell.] He was a true type of the Roundheads of the frontier,
the earnest, eager men who pushed the border ever farther westward
across the continent. He followed Indians and tories with relentless and
undying hatred; for the long list of backwoods virtues did not include
pity for either public or private foes. The tories threatened his life
and the lives of his friends and families; they were hand in glove with
the outlaws who infested the borders, the murderers, horse-thieves, and
passers of counterfeit money. He hunted them down with a furious zest,
and did his work with merciless thoroughness, firm in the belief that he
thus best served the Lord and the nation. One or two of his deeds
illustrate admirably the grimness of the times, and the harsh contrast
between the kindly relations of the border folks with their friends, and
their ferocity towards their foes. They show how the better
backwoodsmen, the upright, church-going men, who loved their families,
did justice to their neighbors, and sincerely tried to serve God, not
only waged an unceasing war on the red and white foes of the State and
of order, but carried it on with a certain ruthlessness that indicated
less a disbelief in, than an utter lack of knowledge of, such a virtue
as leniency to enemies.

One Sunday Campbell was returning from church with his wife and some
friends, carrying his baby on a pillow in front of his saddle, for they
were all mounted. Suddenly a horseman crossed the road close in front of
them, and was recognized by one of the party as a noted tory. Upon being
challenged, he rode off at full speed. Instantly Campbell handed the
baby to a negro slave, struck spur into his horse, and galloping after
the fugitive, overtook and captured him. The other men of the party came
up a minute later. Several recognized the prisoner as a well-known tory;
he was riding a stolen horse; he had on him letters to the British
agents among the Cherokees, arranging for an Indian rising. The party of
returning church-goers were accustomed to the quick and summary justice
of lynch law. With stern gravity they organized themselves into a court.
The prisoner was adjudged guilty, and was given but a short shrift; for
the horsemen hung him to a sycamore tree before they returned to the
road where they had left their families.

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